If you want practice, walk around downtown in your city near where the panhandlers hang out. You will learn to say no and mean it while under pressure.
I was gasing up my car the other day and saw a dude out of the corner of my eye. Kind of an older, scary looking Mexican tow truck driver. I saw him ambling toward me and knew what was coming. He was like "hey man, don't want to bother you but wanted to ask a question: do you believe in Jesus?"
I said "Sometimes" just to be cute.
He was like "Sometimes?! What do you mean?"
At that point I cut him off and said "Look man, what do you want?"
And he said "I just need a few bucks to buy a hot dog man, you know?"
And I simply said "No. I'm not giving you any money."
Some similar happened to me a few years earlier. Bad day at work ends, I'm waiting for the bus. It was a high stress job in european standardization, paying good but stressful as all hell.
I'm alone at the bus stop, a bum looking guy comes to me, and ask for foodstamp (we got those halfprice at work). Yeah sure, I usually give to hoboes, so I gave him one. He stood there and kept asking. "You got one, that's enough to eat, you won't get more".
Dude was bigger than me, but not by a margin wide enough to assault me and go unscaved. I made it pretty clear my generosity was not a weakness, and I'm a benefactor but not a victim. In the end he sat next to me and we discussed until the bus arrived.
The key thing is a no should mean no. When you say no to someone, you got to hang to it so people understand it's not a call for opening negociations.
The situation is not much different with people you meet everyday. Make sure they understand their boundaries. If they don't, just avoid them politely but firmly, leave or end systematically situations where the boundaries you've set have been crossed. Remember you owe no one an explanation, and if you chose to explain yourself, make sure this is perceived as what it is - an explanation and not a call for discussion.
A good thing to remember is : you are in college. At no point do you *need* any of the people you will meet there. You don't need to work with them, so you always have the option of just avoiding them. Your diploma and your carreer should be your primary focus. In the meantime, to deal with people abusing you, you have to get yourself outside of the victim mentality, because victims attract abusers like shit attract flies.
Some keyphrases : "I am not interested in discussing this." "I'll go now, we'll meet later"
TL;DR : set your boundaries. Decide what is off limit and stick to it. End systematically any situations where they are not respected. Sail through college and go right to a career, earn lot of cash, drive a mercedes at 30 and drown in pucci
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Topic: Standing up for yourself? (Read 2526 times)